


Chump Change

by CherryIce



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-15
Updated: 2006-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryIce/pseuds/CherryIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny met Rusty at the New York State Fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chump Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aerye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerye/gifts).



Danny met Rusty at the New York State Fair. Danny was picking pockets and scamming the scammers on the midway. Rusty was bare-shouldered and bare-kneed, twenty-three, licking powdered sugar from fair donuts from his fingers. It was the end of August 1987, and the sun was unforgiving. Danny had beads of sweat forming at the hollow of his back and nape of his neck, fabric of his button-up shirt beginning to stick to his skin.

They stumbled into each other, two perfectly timed brushes combing into a jar. "Sorry," Rusty breathed as he passed on by, one hand on Danny's forearm below his rolled-up shirtsleeves, and his fingers slightly sticky on Danny's skin.

Danny inclined his head in return. "No problem," he said out loud, said thank you in his head as he slipped his hand lightly back into his own pocket. And except for the sugar on his skin, Danny promptly forgot all about him.

 

Danny had made the rounds already, the butter sculpture, sand sculpture, wood carving demos, talent show – places with standing tourists whose attention was fixed elsewhere. Ran the midway. The sky behind the Ferris wheel was a blue like a robin's egg, western horizon just starting to darken. The air was heavy with the smell of popcorn and candy apples, oil and sweat and laughing voices. Danny was tired, hot, and possibly still on the run from Herbert's goons, and Rusty was his last lift for the day.

(For the rest of his life, these are the reasons he will provide whenever this story comes up, his excuse for why he didn't notice his wallet was missing until he was on the colonnade. Rusty just quirks and eyebrow, and everyone listening to the story will nod and smirk into their drinks.)

Danny was at the wine court -- fewer around him who nonetheless managed to be too close -- asking for a class of chardonnay, when he realized three things in rather rapid succession. One, the last wallet he had lifted was empty of cash; two, his own wallet, which he had been emptying the others into before tossing them, was gone; and three, the last wallet he has lifted probably did not belong to the man he had lifted it from, as he thinks he would have remembered picking the pocket of a two-hundred and fifty pound albino man.

The server was sunburned, looked tired and fed up, and was clearly waiting for Danny to produce the cash. "Just a second," Danny said, patting his pockets once more, a golly gee smile on his face and cursing under his breath.

"I've got it, Josh," a voice said, almost familiar, and a hand pressed against Danny's lower back, shirt sticking damply to his skin. Danny looked over in time to see Rusty pull Danny's wallet from his pocket, thumb off two bills more than required for the bottle. Josh, now smiling, brought over with two glasses. The hand left Danny's back to snag the bottle and Rusty turned, leaving Danny to snag the glasses.

"Danny," Danny said, falling into step beside him.

"Rusty," Rusty said, teeth white and flashing. This time, when his hand brushed Danny's hip, Danny felt his wallet resettle into his pocket. "Professional courtesy," Rusty said, settling down at an empty table and waving his hand to the other chair. Danny sat, carefully, as Rusty sprawled, pulled his recently reacquired walled from his pocket and flipped it open. Quick examination showed half of his take from the day still in the billfold.

"Professional courtesy?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"Finder's fee," Rusty replied, filling both glasses. The label on the bottle was Goose Watch.

"Classy," Danny said with a tilt of his head. "You working for Herbert?"

"Nah," Rusty said, pushing one glass across the table. "I like my teeth just fine when they're in my head."

Danny inclined his head, wrapped his fingers around the stem of his glass. "A little provincial, don't you think?"

"Everything is provincial within a certain area about its origin," Rusty said, looking out at the people bustling through the court. "The trick is figuring out which provincial pieces are going to be worth the most somewhere else."

"Details," Danny said, and sipped his wine, carefully. "Details. What do you figure the R.S. on this is?"

"No idea," Rusty replied, and topped off his own glass. He was wearing a white wife beater, tanned all over, the sort of guy you might look twice at, but for all the wrong reasons. His hair was sun bleached and a bit shaggy, and except for the glint in his eyes and the way his hands moved he looked like he should be surfing. He rolled his glass around between his palms, tossed the rest of his wine back. "Shame it's going to go to waste, though."

Danny sighed as a large hand dropped to his shoulder and applied pressure that was slightly more than friendly.

"Mr. Ocean," a long, slow voice came. "Mr. Herbert would like to have a word with you."

"As I'm sure you can see," Danny said, "I'm a bit busy at the moment. I'm pretty sure I have an opening on Thursday, though." The hand on his shoulder tightened with a sound that was either a growl from the enforcer, or Danny's bones grinding together.

"Oh, don't miss your meeting on my account," Rusty said as he refilled his glass again and sprawled back across his chair. He had one arm slung across the back, three fingers drumming, wine dangling precariously from his other hand, and his grin was blinding.

"Thanks," Danny said between gritted teeth, nodded at the three tapping fingers. The hand on his shoulder tightened again, and he let out what could possibly be construed as an unprofessional yelp. "Okay, okay," he said. "I'm coming." As he stood, he saw that the other two were about five feet back.

"Oh, hey, wait a second," Rusty said. "You forgot something." Danny was already ducking; the hand on his shoulder releasing as the wine splashed into the eyes of the man it belonged to.

Run was something neither of them needed to say because they were already off, Rusty vaulting tables while Danny dodged pedestrians. Get them wasn't something anyone needed to yell either, as the generic-issue hulking henchmen were already after them.

"They're faster than they look," Rusty hollered as they pelted pell-mell down the midway.

"They always are," Danny called back as they cornered sharply behind the twisted pretzel of a roller coaster.

"Uh-huh," Rusty said, and caught Danny by his collar and pulled him back against a wall.

The goons appeared around the corner, the lead one easily identifiable by the set of his jaw and the red wine splattered across his very expensive white shirt. "Oh no," Danny said as they slowed down and spread out, but Rusty just dragged him further back along the wall.

The sun was starting to go down, air losing only the smallest fraction of its heat but shadows stretching out. Danny was cataloging the location of the nearest exits and the most crowded paths to them when Rusty shoved him back into a corner and wedged a thigh between his legs. "Erp?" he said, and Rusty laughed against his neck.

"Keep your head down," Rusty said, lips against his ear. Anywhere else he would have had to whisper, but carnies were barking and children were laughing, and above them, a roller coaster roared down its tracks, screams rising and fading in Doppler effect.

"Riiiight," Danny said, and turned his face against Rusty's shoulder, jumping as Rusty shifted his hands to his hips. Rusty's skin was almost burning hot, and Danny's shirt was sticking to his skin. One of the goons was looking in their general direction, so Danny turned his head and nipped at the join of Rusty's neck and shoulder. "Touch the wallet," he said, "and you're dead."

"Think of it," Rusty said, lips still against his ear, "like a protection racket." But his hands kept moving, bypassing the front pocket of Danny's pants and slipping into the back ones.

"I think I hate you," Danny said, and bit Rusty again as he laughed, salt (and sugar?) on Rusty's skin. "Also, this is a protection racket?"

"Hey," Rusty said, pulling back with innocent eyes and a grin flickering at the edges of his lips, "you think I give it away for just anyone? I'm not that sort of girl, Mr. Ocean."

"Oh, for the love of –" and because the goons were still around (this is the part of the story that gets left out when either one of them tells it, but, really, they could tell it if they wanted to, because it was just because the goons were still around – also, it's not like anyone would be surprised) Danny grabbed Rusty by the back of the neck and yanked him back against him.

Rusty did grin then, grin into Danny's mouth and the kiss, laughing silently, all teeth and tongue and tasting of too-sweet wine and powdered sugar.

"I think they've gone now," Rusty said finally, murmuring it into his ear, and Danny slowly came to the realization that he was pressed against a wall with a pair of hands in his back pockets. Hands that didn't belong to him, because his were wound in short blonde hair.

"Now, one crisis might have been averted," Rusty said, lips brushing against Danny's jaw, "but I think we might have another one if we don't move."

Danny jumped back – or jumped sideways, because he was against a wall – and looked around to find the goons gone and exactly no one looking at them.

"What did you do to piss Herbert off?" Rusty asked, falling into step beside him. It was starting to get properly dark, and the lights of the midway were neon and bright, clashing with each other and the booths and rides they lit.

"Job went bad," Danny said, checking to make sure his wallet was still in place. "It was supposed to be a Gertrude Hauser on a gallery –"

"On a gallery. Huh."

" – but we were down a man, and the priest was trying to throw a trail as well."

Rusty shrugged, then stopped walking and held a hand up. "If you had the mime running double as Thumper…"

Danny stopped as well. Blinked. "Huh," he said. "That could work."

"Come on," Rusty said, and draped an arm around Danny's shoulder. "I'll let you buy me some cotton candy."

"Rusty," Danny said, stretched his vowels and slipped Rusty's billfold into this own pocket, "I think that this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


End file.
